Charity shops have lost the plot

[DancingonmyOwn88]

Had a bit of time to kill before work earlier so had a browse in a charity shop. Surrey town but more commuter belt than anything salubrious. Shop was a run of the mill one not one of the boutique type offerings.

Nice green and white maxi dress, casual summer type thing, the other dresses were priced around £8 pounds which isn’t really a bargain but as I liked it a lot I picked it up- only to see it was priced at £30. Yes it was ‘Max Studio’ but those dresses aren’t going for anything like that on Vinted etc.

I asked why it was priced so high and the lady said ‘it’s designer’.😐

Probably been sitting there for months!! Where’s the sense in it?! Why have charity shops become so far removed from what they’re supposed to be- a way to shop sustainably and feel like you’re getting a bargain because it’s not new? Yeah I know they want to raise money as well but surely they’d do that a damn sight quicker if they actually shifted stock and not stuck eye watering labels on things.

I’m still annoyed from last week from a different shop as well when my little boy picked up a toy dinosaur figure and the label said £6. We put it back and I told them why but they didn’t care obviously and it’s still sitting there as of yesterday. How greedy to price children’s toys so high. When I was little you could always find a pocket money toy for a couple of pounds and come away feeling chuffed.

Ive heard lots are going out of business and my sympathy is somewhat limited. Serves them right. They seem to be terrified of people grabbing bargains to resell but then they’ve forgotten that some people on lower incomes are using them to buy clothes etc too.

This isn't new. 20-odd years ago I saw a Miss Selfridge dress in Oxfam for more than I paid for it in Miss Selfridge sale! It just looked a bit vintagey in style.

Sure but nobody wants to pay new prices for seconds.

Puma trainers can be £75 to £100 new - what do you think they should have been charging?

On a side note - the charity shops in Kirkintilloch are fab.

A tenner.

Just as a counter; my local charity shops in Sheffield have a totally different approach. All kids stuff is 50p and all adult stuff is £2. It's like a jumble sale and both are like massive warehouses. They just move everything on dead quick and it easy to donate. I've had some new clothes with tags on and just last week got a gorgeous H and M biker for £2. They also sell furniture which is more expensive but still a bragin. The place is heaving and there is always a queue at the till. It's also really easy to donate as they take everything and you can park outside. I imagine they probably have an eye on stuff as they are sorting if they think they can out it in vinted but they seem to juts turnover as much as they can as fats as they can.

I live in a boring town up north, our charity shops are not expensive, and the local hospice has four types of store, once for all children related, one for ordinary stuff, one for furniture and one for occasion wear. All are good value, my best buy ever was a Peppa Pig interactive book with about 20 different sounds to press during the story for 30p. DGD has used that book for literally tens of hours. She has dresses in her wardrobe that cost £1.50.

I avoid the Oxfam type stores that are expensive and sell new tat. Mind you Oxfam left our boring market town a few years ago, clearly I wasn’t the only one that avoided them.

There was a charity shop near me that had a no donations sign up for best part of a year. Stock seemed expensive (to me) and never seemed to change. It turned out they had a fairly lengthy lease and were just treading water till it ran out. I think lots of places haven’t managed to get volunteers post covid and compensate with a higher prices, lower turnover model that doesn’t always reasonate with locals so they close eventually.

Any charity shop that knows it arse from its elbow, will be comparing prices of some donations to online retailers like Vinted and auction sites like Ebay. Books, Cd's, Vinyl Records etc they will be checking out Music Magpie and Abebooks. The bonus they offer is that you can see the product before purchase and take it home today, so yes they can charge a premium. The thing about the internet is that I'm no longer able to go into a shop in <choose a town/country> and be in a position where I know more about the product than the person selling it, so my ability to get a bargain, that I might be able to resell for a profit elsewhere is much reduced. The days of finding Clarice Cliff tea-services for a fiver are long gone, quite correctly.

It's not true that people on low incomes shop in charity shops - they are often very negative about 'other people's tat' - they shop at Primark and Shein

It's more likely to be middle income people shopping at charity shops - middle class mummies, students, young adults after niche wear, bargain hunters looking to sell on.

It is reasonable to pay £8-10 for jeans, £3-5 for a shirt/top, £10 for a dress and £10 for shoes that still have wear in them.

£1/2 is too low for anything that is actually wearable and did not come from Primark/Shein and £30 is too high for most things - unless it cost over £100 and is still near perfect.

People saying 'the shops that sell everything for a £1 are making profit' - they're not likely to - as they would need to be selling hundreds/thousands of items a day. It's better to sell 50 items at £10 - it's worth the staff's time then to clean, sort and display them - £1 isn't worth the staff time.

I can't remember the last time I saw a pair of jeans in a charity shop that wasn't from primark or a supermarket

Rather ageist if I may say so. 😖

I used to visit various shops in an area including charity shops, as part of my job. I got to know the managers at a couple pretty well, and was horrified by what I was told by one in particular.

This was a very large charity (YMCA). They paid their deputy manager minimum wage, I think the manager got about 10p an hour more. They would get a visit every couple of weeks from a regional manager who would sweep in and tell them they were all crap as a store in a nearby town had a bigger turnover and therefore bigger profits. They would then insist on loads of prices being raised. The difference was that the shop managed by my friend was in a very down market town that was full of low income people, people on benefits etc, with loads of social housing. The shop they were being compared to was in a very up market town with loads of high earners, plenty of 4-5 bed detached houses, extremely desirable area. The regional manager wouldn't accept that the differences in the areas would make a difference to what prices were acceptable in them. Then anything that hadn't sold in one of the more up market areas would be dumped on the shops in more down market areas, and they weren't allowed to drop the price but still got a regular slating for not selling enough.

The other friend worked for a shop which was part of a small, local chain. She wasn't paid massive amounts, but certainly comfortably more than the managers at the big chain. She was given pretty much a free rein over pricing except for the new charity branded goods, how the volunteer staff were managed, which were the best hours to be open for that particular town, what items should be junked and what kept etc. She was also encouraged to chat to the managers of other shops in the chain so they could compare which items were more popular in which towns and swap at their own discretion.

Profit? I thought they were charity shops? I thought the staff were volunteers and anything the shops bring in gets sent to the charity they represent?

My local charity shop sells Primark atmosphere stuff at ridiculous money. They had a clutch/make up bag for £12 which would be £8 max in the store. I don’t think the older ladies who work there know their labels which it what you need in that job.

Perhaps they should stick to: online the good stuff and "pile it high and sell it cheap" all the rest?

The average* charity shop takes £300 per day.
The manager will be paid a little over the mw so £100 and then there is rent, utilities and rates.

• London, major cities and boutique stores may take more.

Apart from manager/deputy salary, rent, utilities, rates, insurance, waste disposal, thefts, cleaning... yes the profit after those items goes to the charity!

Yanbu. I buy a lot less from charity shops than I used to. And now my local shop has stopped returning things and only does credit notes. I was a regular spender there, but it’s too expensive and not worth it for me now. I’d rather buy new for a little more then sell it myself.

Charity shops don't have as wide a customer base as online. Generally they cannot get such high prices, simply because fewer people will see the goods and be in a position to pay for them. People also tend to have something specific in mind when they shop online as they can search wider and with more filters; less so in a charity shop. Charity shops also need stock to move fast so stuff isn't sitting on shelves for weeks, taking up display space. It doesn't matter if something sits on Vinted for weeks but in a bricks and mortar store, that stops you selling other stuff that you can't display.

Selling online also takes more time and resources managing listings and sending off goods etc.

Charity shops used to work by selling stuff cheap, knowing it was cheaper than online but the business model was to keep stuff moving. It did mean sometimes something valuable went for less than it might have done but this is just how the model works and they accept that; retail is an art and it's about keeping stuff moving and customers coming, not trying to wring every last possible penny out of every item. Occasionally someone gets very lucky; good for them.

Their prices in recent years do suggest the model is changing though, and I'm not sure how well it's working.

Me too!

All the episodes of Mary Portas Charity Shops series are up on YouTube.

YANBU. Years ago, say around 2015, I saw an interesting looking jug in a charity shop, looked like some kind of hammered brass or copper or something similar.

Label - £200! I'm sure that flew off the shelves...

Yep, totally. I only get a short break at work, so I riffle through the two charity shops opposite to get away from my desk for a bit. I'm there at least once a week. They are selling used Primark and Asda tops for £8-£9 each! Primark would probably be cheaper for new. We are in the North West too, so not southern pricing.

Charity shops in my town are almost always turning away donations….. which is hardly a surprise…. They aren’t selling as much because it’s so overpriced!! I can’t see how it makes them more money. I don’t think it does as more seem to be closing down.

I did get 10 kids books and 2 DVD’s for £6 today, at a charity shop not in my town, which I was pleased with. Every time we go in there, there seems to be all new stuff! They can actually sell what they’ve got as it’s not stupid prices.

Why have charity shops become so far removed from what they’re supposed to be- a way to shop sustainably and feel like you’re getting a bargain because it’s not new? Yeah I know they want to raise money as well

No their entire purpose is to raise money for their cause. Nothing else.

They have to cover their costs and turn a profit and that profit is for the charity.

Their costs are going up just like everything else so they have to put their prices up.

Its that simple.

But hey ho another week, another charity hating thread.

Let’s just hope you and yours never need their services.

Agree. And they have far too many donations around here, so its pointless allowing stock to hang aeound so long by over pricing it.